


The Arctic Corollary

by LauraS26



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Consequences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Possible future Sheldon/Penny, Salty, friend betrayal, professional ethics violation, the arctic expedition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-07-27 05:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20040334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraS26/pseuds/LauraS26
Summary: When the guys tampered with the experiment on the hunt for slow moving monopoles, they weren’t just messing with Sheldon. They were sabotaging a funded research expedition, and that has consequences.Penny isn’t dumb, she knows what went down in the Arctic was bad. Her friend is hurting, and she needs to understand so she can help him. Good thing she has her buddy Google.With the support of a fierce defender, Sheldon decides that he won’t take the rap for their actions and flee back to Texas. With that decision, everything changes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks in the world to my amazing beta BrilliantLady who has generously gone back over chapter one and helped me spruce it up and smooth bits out, as well as giving me lots of help and inspiration with chapter two which I’ll stick up in a few minutes. She’s on here, so nip over to her page and have a nosy if you enjoy this fic. While she caught plenty of mistakes, any that have slipped through are my own. Hope you enjoy!

Penny wasn’t stupid. She didn’t have anywhere near the ridiculous genius of her brilliant whackadoodle neighbour, or even the book smarts of the rest of her little gaggle of nerdy ducklings, but she wasn’t just some dumb blonde waitress. Sure, she didn’t have a degree. She dropped the classroom as soon as possible to follow her dreams of stardom, but when she had been in school her grades were consistently high. Aside from that, she had social smarts. Something all of her guys severely lacked. She could read people. Situations and atmospheres. And since the return from the Arctic the atmosphere in the building stunk.

Leonard had played off the situation as the result of some prank played on Sheldon, with insincere apologies and vague victim blaming. Just a funny joke, ha ha. The genius was apparently just overreacting and sulking, but that wasn’t right. She didn’t understand the ramifications of the ‘prank’, but there was a faint undercurrent of uneasiness in Leonard that spoke of guilt he was denying. The taut line of Sheldon’s shoulders and the way he held himself just a little more removed from them smacked of real betrayal. Much more than should come from just a prank.

She didn’t understand, but she was a fast learner.

Settled on her sofa that evening, having turned Leonard away with some contrived excuse after Sheldon’s departure Penny pulled out her laptop. The same laptop that she used to unleash her inner barbarian queen with her brilliant neighbour on Age of Conan. After a brief freak out, she had asked Sheldon to add a game slot to his schedule to help her regulate her obsession, and now Queen Penelope and Sheldor the Conqueror wreaked havoc together in the digital world two evenings a week. He held the new password to her account to save her from temptation. It hadn’t felt right to play without him, so she’d never asked for it before he left, and hadn’t set foot in the Hyborian Age in three months. It was strange to realise how much she’d missed it.  
Pulling up Google, she hummed thoughtfully before starting her first search. ‘Scientific expedition rules’. She wasn’t sure what search would bring her the answers she needed, but that was as good a place to start as any.

At four in the morning, with a shift at the Cheesecake Factory in just four hours and eyes burning from what felt like years squinting at a screen, she slammed her laptop shut. Her jaw was tense from all the grinding of her teeth she’d done, and the skin around her eyes was tight with fury. She felt sick. A prank should stay between friends. What the guys had done could have devastating consequences for Sheldon’s career, unless he exposed them for what they’d done. Which was exactly what she was going to encourage him to do.

It wasn’t a prank, it was sabotage of a mission funded by a grant. It was betrayal of a man who held science as almost sacred. Destroying his trust in his own ability. She had to see Sheldon. Right now.

Shoving the laptop onto the couch cushion she got up, ignoring the time, and crossed the hallway in her pyjamas. Her spare key opened the door to the boys’ apartment quietly, and she eased it shut behind her. If Leonard woke up and came out here she might punch him in the throat, the way she was feeling right now.

Padding across the room Penny pondered the best way to wake Sheldon without his danger alarm going off. She smiled.

Sheldon’s bedroom door opened as noiselessly as the front door did. Naturally. He’d never stand for squeaky hinges. There was probably a chart somewhere with optimal hinge oiling schedules on it. The thought made her grin briefly despite her upset. She moved to the side of his bed and knelt so she wasn’t looming over him in the dark when he woke.

“Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr,” she sang softly, only reaching the second repetition before big, bewildered, blue eyes fluttered open. Damn, the man had better eyelashes than her! She also noted distractedly that he must have shaved off that ridiculous Mirror Spock beard before bed. God she hated that her brain could make that reference. Honestly she did.  
Those confused eyes caught sight of her kneeling by his side, and his long, lanky frame went stiff under the covers. “You’re in my room. People can’t be in my room Penny.” His plaintive voice was hoarse and scratchy.  
She smiled at the familiar reprimand. “Sorry sweetie, but I needed to talk to you. Just you.”  
He sat up, suddenly becoming the one of the pair who was looming. He really was very tall. She ached to lunge up and wrap him in her arms. To share comfort, apologise that their friends were such assholes, and vow vengeance on his behalf. But no. That would only comfort her. He’d been violated enough. She wouldn’t force a hug on him now, when she had already invaded his sanctum, and he was still smarting from the ‘prank’.

“What do you need to talk to me about Penny?” His head cocked, birdlike, and fondness swelled in her chest.

She steeled herself. She’d never been in love with Leonard, but she did care about him. However, what he’d done was reprehensible, and Sheldon didn’t deserve to be the one to suffer for it. They’d all known what he was like as a person before agreeing to leave. They had stepped in with their eyes wide open, and then lashed out when they couldn’t cope. She was so disappointed.

“Sweetie. Sheldon. You know what happened in the Arctic was wrong, right?”  
He flinched minutely, shying away from making eye contact. Or even looking at her at all. Even in the darkness, his eyes focused on a point over her left shoulder somewhere. His breathing was unnaturally slow and regular, making her think the physicist might in fact be counting breaths to keep them steady.  
Penny went to reach for his twitching hand atop the covers, but pulled back at the last second thinking better of it. Instead she fisted her pyjama shorts at the top of her thighs to still her noticeably trembling fingers, and took a shuddering breath.  
“It violated professional ethics so bad, and what happened was _ not _ on you.”  
Sheldon looked on the verge of leaping out of the bed and absconding, but his eyes had snapped to hers in the dark, whites shining in the dim light from the window. Quivering like a spooked horse, he paused for a moment before huffing out the breath she hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. He gave himself a little shake and she felt that suddenly the weight of his full focus was on her. Why had she never noticed how intimidating it was being the full focus of all one hundred eighty-seven of those much boasted IQ points before?

“Penny. Where is this coming from? As Leonard’s girlfriend do social conventions not dictate that you take his side in any dispute? I confess to being confused. Also, why did you feel the need to invade my room at this time of night to tell me this?”

Shrugging off that weird moment of intimidation as a result of his looming frame in the dark, and exhaustion, she shook her head. “Sheldon, whatever social conventions are, they don’t beat out my sense of right and wrong. We have something called morals in Omaha.-he frowned and opened his mouth but she barrelled right over him, needing to get this out-In a dispute I take the side of the one in the right. I’m your friend Sheldon, separate to any relationship I may have with Leonard. Though I will be terminating the hell out of that ‘girlfriend paradigm’ or whatever,” she muttered bitterly.  
She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “But that’s a me and him issue. This is a me and you issue. I need you to know they were wrong, you did nothing wrong, and you can’t fall on your sword for them. That wasn’t a prank, it was sabotage. They tampered with your data”-she reached out and shook his shoulder lightly-“physics still needs you, Doctor Whackadoodle. Think of the strings! Who will untangle them if you can’t?” She was pleased to see a spark of life in his piercing eyes at her attempt to lighten the mood.

“Really Penny, I’m not _ untangling strings, _ I’m decoding the laws of our entire universe. You’re right, science can’t afford to lose my brain.” He frowned, but with ruffled bed hair and sleepy eyes he was about as fierce as a kitten. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re in my room at... four thirty-eight a.m.! Good Lord! I’ve told you before, I need the correct amount of REM cycles for my mind to function at optimal capacity, Penny!”

She smiled with a guilty sort of shrug.

“You’re right, I’m sorry Sheldon. I should have waited, but I just really needed to see my friend who was hurt by our other friends. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight from the lack of that REM sleep myself! Get back to your cycles and I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll go out after work, no alcohol, I promise! I still have to talk to you about what happened, please don’t do anything crazy until I do, okay MoonPie?”

“Penny,” he huffed, “only Meemaw can call me that!” She took that being his only objection as agreement with a relieved giggle.

“Sure Moon Pie, see you tomorrow.”

He glared as she stood up, groaning at the twinge in her back from hours hunched over her laptop. Despite the expression, there was less coiled tension in his body than she had seen during the confrontation in her apartment and again upon him waking. His shoulders had lowered from their defensive hunch, and his clenched jaw had loosened so she mentally patted herself on the back.

“Goodnight, Sheldon.”

“...Goodnight, Penny.”  
Now, was it even worth trying to grab three hours sleep?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my wonderful beta BrilliantLady for her hard work. All mistakes are my own, especially since it’s 5:30am and I just had to spend 45 minutes working on the code formatting! If you’re back for chapter two, I suggest a quick reread of chapter one since I made a fair few adjustments. If you’re new and just finished chapter one, welcome. Hope you enjoy! Xx

The answer was no. By the time Penny shuffled zombie-like back into her own apartment and looked at the clock she knew there was no way she’d wake up for her shift if she let herself sink into her nice... warm... cozy... Yeah, bed was a no-go. As bitter consolation she started a pot of coffee and promised herself she could drink it all, and another pot before she left. While the dark ambrosia brewed the blonde hustled herself off into the shower. Maybe a cold shower would wake her up, but she actually loved herself so she cranked the water up blissfully hot instead.

She deliberately lingered a little longer than usual in the shower. If she was denied sleep she was determined that this morning would be luxurious in every single other way. With that in mind, wrapped in a towel with another turbaned on her head to hold her sopping mane, she danced her way over to the fridge and pulled out the special “welcome home” lactose-free cheesecake. She had bought it for Leonard, before all this ‘prank’ business came out. Leonard didn’t deserve cheesecake but Penny did. Hopefully whatever made it lactose-free wouldn’t make it taste gross.

Plonking it on the table, she shimmied around to the coffee pot and filled up her favourite mug. After a second’s hesitation, she ferried both the mug and the pot over to sit beside her box of reclaimed, dairy-free-hopeful-deliciousness. Since the boys had been away, she actually had milk in her own apartment for once too! One fork later and she sat herself in front of her spoils. Truly the breakfast of champions. She forked up a bite with no small amount of petty satisfaction. Hmm, not bad at all. The saltiness of the act added a certain zest, she thought.

After enjoying the luxury of lingering over her breakfast and two cups of coffee for once, Penny hauled herself to her feet, and unwrapped her towel turban. She turned the towel to a dry part and gave her hair a ruffle to soak up a bit more water, then draped the towel over the back of her chair. A glance at the clock showed it was only 05:43. Plenty of time. What better way to counter a horrible evening, and no sleep, than to have a phenomenal hair day? It was only a waitressing job, but looking good made her feel good, and she wanted that right now.

-000-

After a morning of mocking and ridicule Sheldon was at the end of his tether. On spotting his fair-weather friends sitting at his preferred lunch table he straightened his spine, a little Texas stubbornness refusing to allow him to let their betrayal go. He chose an adjacent table. While it didn’t have the ideal sight lines and acoustics of his usual table, it also didn’t have those treacherous, feeble-minded snakes he used to call his best friends, which he felt more than made up the deficit. Sheldon was used to having no friends, after all.

The lead betrayer stood and approached Sheldon’s newly claimed lunch spot. He sighed internally, prepared for some mindless drivel about forgiving and forgetting, letting bygones be bygones and other such rot. But no. Sheldon was a Cooper, and a Cooper could hold a grudge like no one else. He wouldn’t be swayed, despite the cruel siren song of companionship. And, he recalled suddenly, reducing the desire to fold even further, they were no longer his only source for positive social interaction. Penny had professed her friendship to be separate from their respective relationships with Leonard, taking away the saboteur’s only leverage. The lack of a contract made him nervous, but she had stuck around for two years without one, and the contract hadn’t stopped Leonard from his heinous course of action. An uncontracted friendship was still better than no friendship. He sat up straighter. 

“Sheldon, why are you sitting by yourself?” The little homunculus even had the nerve to sound exasperated! As if he, Sheldon, were the ridiculous one! He wasn’t the one expecting to carry out scientific misconduct and face no consequences, not even the upset of his victim. 

“I have no friends here, therefore like the proverbial cheese, I stand alone. Even while seated.” The weasel pulled out a chair and presumptuously sat at Sheldon’s new table.

“Come on, we said we were sorry,” the backstabber whinged in that nasal voice, as though with the magic words, all fault would disappear. Well the damage to his career wasn’t going anywhere, so neither was his condemnation. Sheldon just glared in disgust, and maybe a little mild hope that this would be the time he finally accessed the Force. Just to compound this fantastic lunch – he gave himself a mental pat on the back for excellent use of sarcasm, even if only in his head – Kripke sidled up to the table like the pest he was.

“Hey Cooper,” he lisped mockingly, “wead your retwaction e-mail. Way to destwoy your weputation!”  
That smug smirk directed at him made his jaw ache with the urge to grind his teeth, but _Barry Kripke_ of all people wasn’t worth the hit his productivity would take were he to require a trip to the orthodontist, or, god forbid, develop temporomandibular syndrome.

“You see?” he snarled at his former best friend, barely noticing how the worm actually flinched back with a brief flash of fear in his eyes “People have been pointing and laughing at me all day!” He had little hope that this would be what brought out true regret in the turncoat, but little hope was still hope, and Leonard had been his best friend for six years. This scenario wouldn’t have hurt nearly so much from anyone else.

Kripke butted in with his two cents, “That’s not twue. People’ve been pointing and laughing at you your whole wife.”

Sheldon smothered the vulgar urge to stand to his full height and punch the little annoyance. He was above such mindless violence despite his origins, he was forced to remind himself. Repeatedly. It was a mantra keeping him in his seat.

He decided that making a speech to the dining hall, though it would be an exceptional speech comparing himself to one of his few intellectual peers, the great Albert Einstein himself, might meet Penny’s criteria for the ‘something crazy’ he wasn’t supposed to do until after their talk so he stood up. Again he failed to notice the flinches of the proverbial thorns in his side. They were unnerved by his uncharacteristic lack of engagement, coupled with the abrupt movement and his great height which somehow always seemed to slip people’s minds until he did something to draw attention to it. Sheldon took his tray and left the pair of sub par ‘scientists’ to each other’s company without another word. They deserved each other, and he would eat in his office.

-000- 

Slumping into a seat in the break room Penny toed off her shoes, wriggling her feet to work the ache out. She was worried. Sheldon had to face the results of his premature celebratory email and subsequent retraction today. With all of her worry, the exhaustion from not sleeping last night, and sore feet from waitressing, the only things that were keeping her going were the excellent tips from her fantastic hair, her makeup, and her determination to put her acting skills to good use. She was playing the role of ‘chirpy and cheerful waitress’ like she was aiming for an Oscar, and it was paying off. Literally.

Groaning, she slipped her shoes back on and shuffled over to her bag to grab her phone and shoot off a quick message. Sheldon was probably too busy to see it, but if he did she hoped it would brighten up his hard day, even just a little. And just having done it helped ease her mind a touch too. Win, win.

Standing again to get herself a coffee, she startled at the buzz of her phone in her hand. A near immediate reply from Sheldon, she must have caught him at a good time!

_**Hello, Penny. My day has been terrible, not ‘good’ as you hoped in your abominably typed message. I don’t believe I have done anything crazy as you ordered when you invaded my room last night, though it has been challenging. Social convention dictates that I now enquire about your day. How has your day been, Penny?**_

She wanted to laugh at the block of perfectly punctuated and spelled text, but she couldn’t. She had known today was gonna be hard on him, but still she had hoped she was wrong.

_**Sry sweety wish i was there to help u, wnt me to pic u up frm work for tht chat so u dnt have to ride with he who must not be named? Xx**_

_**Really Penny, I’m not riding with Voldemort! But yes, I’d like to take you up on your horrendously spelled offer. I’ll see you in the parking lot after work. Do endeavour to be prompt.**_

She chuckled, wondering if he realised that she was playing up the text speak just to mess with him.

_**C u then sweetie! xx**_

It was gonna be a hard conversation, but for some reason she was still looking forward to spending time with her whackadoodle tonight. Finishing her coffee quickly after a hasty glance at the clock, she went back on shift with a slightly lighter heart. Her feet still ached though.


End file.
